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. 2022 Aug 19;8(33):eabo1754.
doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abo1754. Epub 2022 Aug 19.

Diving into the vertical dimension of elasmobranch movement ecology

Samantha Andrzejaczek  1 , Tim C D Lucas  2 , Maurice C Goodman  1 , Nigel E Hussey  3 , Amelia J Armstrong  4 , Aaron Carlisle  5 , Daniel M Coffey  6 , Adrian C Gleiss  7   8 , Charlie Huveneers  9 , David M P Jacoby  10   11 , Mark G Meekan  12 , Johann Mourier  13   14 , Lauren R Peel  15   16 , Kátya Abrantes  17   18 , André S Afonso  19   20 , Matthew J Ajemian  21 , Brooke N Anderson  22 , Scot D Anderson  23 , Gonzalo Araujo  24   25 , Asia O Armstrong  4 , Pascal Bach  26 , Adam Barnett  17   18 , Mike B Bennett  4 , Natalia A Bezerra  20   27 , Ramon Bonfil  28   29 , Andre M Boustany  23   30 , Heather D Bowlby  31 , Ilka Branco  20 , Camrin D Braun  32 , Edward J Brooks  33 , Judith Brown  34 , Patrick J Burke  13 , Paul Butcher  35 , Michael Castleton  1 , Taylor K Chapple  36 , Olivier Chateau  37 , Maurice Clarke  38 , Rui Coelho  39   40 , Enric Cortes  41 , Lydie I E Couturier  42 , Paul D Cowley  43 , Donald A Croll  44 , Juan M Cuevas  45   46 , Tobey H Curtis  47 , Laurent Dagorn  26 , Jonathan J Dale  1 , Ryan Daly  43   48 , Heidi Dewar  49 , Philip D Doherty  50   51 , Andrés Domingo  52 , Alistair D M Dove  53 , Michael Drew  9   54 , Christine L Dudgeon  4   55 , Clinton A J Duffy  56 , Riley G Elliott  57 , Jim R Ellis  58 , Mark V Erdmann  59 , Thomas J Farrugia  60   61 , Luciana C Ferreira  12 , Francesco Ferretti  62 , John D Filmalter  43 , Brittany Finucci  63 , Chris Fischer  64 , Richard Fitzpatrick  18   65 , Fabien Forget  26 , Kerstin Forsberg  66   67 , Malcolm P Francis  63 , Bryan R Franks  68 , Austin J Gallagher  69 , Felipe Galvan-Magana  70 , Mirta L García  71   72 , Troy F Gaston  73 , Bronwyn M Gillanders  74 , Matthew J Gollock  11 , Jonathan R Green  75 , Sofia Green  75 , Christopher A Griffiths  58   76   77 , Neil Hammerschlag  78 , Abdi Hasan  79 , Lucy A Hawkes  80 , Fabio Hazin  20 , Matthew Heard  9   54   81 , Alex Hearn  67   75   82 , Kevin J Hedges  83 , Suzanne M Henderson  84 , John Holdsworth  85 , Kim N Holland  86 , Lucy A Howey  87   88 , Robert E Hueter  64   89 , Nicholas E Humphries  90 , Melanie Hutchinson  86   91 , Fabrice R A Jaine  13   92 , Salvador J Jorgensen  93 , Paul E Kanive  94 , Jessica Labaja  95 , Fernanda O Lana  20 , Hugo Lassauce  15   96   97 , Rebecca S Lipscombe  98 , Fiona Llewellyn  11 , Bruno C L Macena  20   99 , Ronald Mambrasar  79 , Jaime D McAllister  100 , Sophy R McCully Phillips  58 , Frazer McGregor  101 , Matthew N McMillan  74   102 , Lianne M McNaughton  103 , Sibele A Mendonça  20 , Carl G Meyer  86 , Megan Meyers  12 , John A Mohan  104 , John C Montgomery  57 , Gonzalo Mucientes  105   106 , Michael K Musyl  107 , Nicole Nasby-Lucas  49   93 , Lisa J Natanson  108 , John B O'Sullivan  23 , Paulo Oliveira  20 , Yannis P Papastamtiou  109 , Toby A Patterson  110 , Simon J Pierce  111 , Nuno Queiroz  106   112 , Craig A Radford  57 , Andy J Richardson  34 , Anthony J Richardson  113   114 , David Righton  58   115 , Christoph A Rohner  111 , Mark A Royer  86 , Ryan A Saunders  116 , Matthias Schaber  117 , Robert J Schallert  1 , Michael C Scholl  118   119   120 , Andrew C Seitz  60 , Jayson M Semmens  100 , Edy Setyawan  15   57 , Brendan D Shea  62   69 , Rafid A Shidqi  121   122 , George L Shillinger  1   67   123 , Oliver N Shipley  69 , Mahmood S Shivji  124 , Abraham B Sianipar  7 , Joana F Silva  58 , David W Sims  90   125 , Gregory B Skomal  126 , Lara L Sousa  127 , Emily J Southall  90 , Julia L Y Spaet  128 , Kilian M Stehfest  129 , Guy Stevens  15 , Joshua D Stewart  15   130 , James A Sulikowski  22 , Ismail Syakurachman  79 , Simon R Thorrold  32 , Michele Thums  12 , David Tickler  131 , Mariana T Tolloti  26 , Kathy A Townsend  132 , Paulo Travassos  20 , John P Tyminski  64   89 , Jeremy J Vaudo  124 , Drausio Veras  133 , Laurent Wantiez  96 , Sam B Weber  34   51 , R J David Wells  134 , Kevin C Weng  135 , Bradley M Wetherbee  124   136 , Jane E Williamson  13 , Matthew J Witt  50   80 , Serena Wright  58 , Kelly Zilliacus  44 , Barbara A Block  1 , David J Curnick  11
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Diving into the vertical dimension of elasmobranch movement ecology

Samantha Andrzejaczek et al. Sci Adv. .

Abstract

Knowledge of the three-dimensional movement patterns of elasmobranchs is vital to understand their ecological roles and exposure to anthropogenic pressures. To date, comparative studies among species at global scales have mostly focused on horizontal movements. Our study addresses the knowledge gap of vertical movements by compiling the first global synthesis of vertical habitat use by elasmobranchs from data obtained by deployment of 989 biotelemetry tags on 38 elasmobranch species. Elasmobranchs displayed high intra- and interspecific variability in vertical movement patterns. Substantial vertical overlap was observed for many epipelagic elasmobranchs, indicating an increased likelihood to display spatial overlap, biologically interact, and share similar risk to anthropogenic threats that vary on a vertical gradient. We highlight the critical next steps toward incorporating vertical movement into global management and monitoring strategies for elasmobranchs, emphasizing the need to address geographic and taxonomic biases in deployments and to concurrently consider both horizontal and vertical movements.

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Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.. Deployment and pop-up and/or recapture locations of tracked elasmobranchs.
Yellow triangles indicate deployment and red circles indicate pop-up and/or recapture of the 989 elasmobranchs included within the analysis for this study. Numbers refer to the ocean biogeographic realms as defined by Costello et al. (22) (see table S3). Pop-up locations were not available for 144 tags.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.. Comparison of epipelagic water occupation by each tagged elasmobranch species.
Mean percentage of time at liberty spent by tagged elasmobranchs within the (A) top 5, (B) top 50, (C) top 100, and (D) top 250 m of the water column. Error bars represent ±1 SD and are truncated at 0 and 100%. Exact values can be extracted from table S4, along with the mean percentage of time spent in the top 10 m. Species are sorted from top to bottom by lowest to highest use of the top 250 m to ease interpretability. Cuban dogfish and Arctic skate spent all their time deeper than 250 m.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.. Vertical distributions and diel behavior of 15 elasmobranch species.
The hourly median depth distributions of 15 elasmobranch species determined from hourly median depths from each satellite-tagged individual within each species. Only species with >1000 days of depth time-series data were incorporated into this figure (fig. S3 shows a corresponding figure with all available species). Violin plots represent the full distribution of the data, with colors relating to family. Boxplots depict the lower quartile, upper quartile (and thus the interquartile range), and median within the data, with whiskers extending from the shallowest to the deepest depth observed within each species. Whiskers are capped to 1200 m to improve visual interpretation, with the maximum depths of species that exceed this threshold stated at the bottom of the whisker. Bars represent the estimated detection zones of aerial surveys (top 5 m; drone icon), scuba-diving surveys (top 50 m; diver icon), and longline fishing (top 250 m; fish and hook icon) used within this study. Pie charts represent the proportion of individuals within each species that primarily exhibited nDVM, rDVM, or no clear evidence of DVM (neutral) as determined by nonparametric Wilcoxon signed-rank tests applied to time-series data. Species are ordered by habitat type, moving from oceanic to transient to coastal species from left to right.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.. Vertical habitat overlap between elasmobranch species.
Matrix of vertical habitat overlap (Bhattacharyya coefficient) among species, where zero indicates no overlap between depth distributions and one indicates identical depth distributions. Calculations were based on time-series depth data binned at 10-m intervals for each individual and averaged across a species. Only species with five or more individual depth time-series datasets were incorporated into this analysis (n = 26).
Fig. 5.
Fig. 5.. Clustered depth distributions of elasmobranchs.
Depth distributions for 26 elasmobranch species with time-series data binned at 10-m intervals. Note that the plot has been limited to the top 150 m to ease interpretation but extends to 1850 m (see fig. S4 for the full plot). Italicized lettering next to each species name indicates the habitat type of each species (c = coastal, t = transient, and o = oceanic). The dendrogram and clusters on the right side of the figure resulted from hierarchical cluster analysis performed on dissimilarity of the Bhattacharyya coefficient. Numbered clusters represent species grouped according to similarity in vertical habitat use.
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